As historians claim, humanity invented money millennia
before Christ. Since then, money has been and will always be ubiquitous.
Commodity-money relations in Ukraine develop in a spiral relationship.
The same happened to our hryvnia which only revived after Ukraine became
an independent state. So when did the hryvnia emerge for the first time?
Whence its name? How is it connected with historical traditions?
These and many other questions are being answered by Zinayida
Zraziuk, Chair of the Numismatics Department, National Museum of Ukrainian
History. “The history of the emergence of the hryvnia as a monetary unit
dates back to the times of old Rus’. Kyivan Rus’ lacked its own money until
the tenth century: it mostly used the Arabic silver dirhams which came
to Rus’ territory through trade with the Caliphate. Rus’ merchants, who
traded in the East in furs, wax, and cheliad (slaves), brought home
dirhams which, hidden in troves, archeologists find in great quantities.
Less frequently occur Byzantine gold solidi and silver semissis
and
tremissi
and still more rarely European deniers. The spread of foreign coins
in Kyivan Rus’ testifies to active trade and to the fact that foreign merchants
found it safer to go across its territory than by sea.
However, the situation changed in the late tenth century.
International ties and trade were being strengthened and expanded. Kyiv
became capital of a large centralized state. It is then that Kyivan Rus
begins to mint coins of its own for the first time in history, while the
inflow of foreign coins ran dry for various reasons. For example, Arab
dirhams vanish, as the Caliphate disintegrated, and its silver mines were
exhausted.
The first, Rus’s proper, money — silver and gold coins
(srebrenyky and zlatnyky) — emerged under Prince Volodymyr
Sviatoslavovych, and were only minted for 25 years. Srebrenyky,
made of imported silver, were issued under Volodymyr, Sviatopolk the Accursed,
and when Yaroslav the Wise still reigned in Novgorod. But the zlatnyk,
resembling the Byzantine solidus, was minted only in the times of Volodymyr,
at the turn of the eleventh century. Yet, the reserves of the precious
metal were not sufficient to issue the required quantity of coins. In addition,
there were no private mints in Rus’ at that time. Sometimes, heads of European
states granted monetary regalia, i.e., the right to mint coins, to some
of their vassals: this was convenient for both suzerain and vassal. For
minting is a very profitable business.
After Kyivan Rus’ had stopped issuing the zlotnyk and
srebrenyk,
it entered its so-called coin-free period. It is then that time that hryvnias
came into being as large hunks of silver that could be weighed.
Let us turn to the very word, hryvnia. What immediately
comes to mind is an old Rus’ ring-shaped ornament worn on the neck. Hence
its being called hryvnia, for it was put on zahryvok, by the back
of the neck. Kyivan smiths made neck hryvnias out of gold and silver. However,
although the hryvnia seems to be a woman’s ornament, it was also worn by
men, e.g., the prince and his retinue, as a symbol of authority. The neck
hryvnia occurs both in burials and troves together with other ornaments
such as bracelets and earrings. But it is not yet quite clear if there
is any link between the hryvnia as a neck ornament and the coin hryvnia:
the chronicles of the day provide no evidence.
The first hryvnias in Rus’ were of two kinds: the silver
hryvnia, i.e., a silver ingot of a certain weight, and the hryvnia kun,
a countable one consisting of a specific number of coins. Later on emerge
the hryvnias one can see exhibited at Ukraine’s National History Museum.
These hryvnias come from Kyiv, Novgorod, Chernihiv, and the Volga Basin.
The earliest of them, from Kyiv, a hexagonal-shaped elongated silver piece
weighing about 140-160 grams, appeared in the eleventh century. These hryvnias,
the economic symbol of Kyiv, were in circulation until the Mongol-Tartar
invasion in the thirteenth century.
Of great importance in Rus’ money circulation were the
Novgorod hryvnias which emerged in northwestern Kyivan Rus’ and then spread
throughout the state. Unlike those of Kyiv, Novgorod hryvnias were cast
in the shape of little silver bars weighing about 204 grams. The Chernihiv
hryvnia stood between those of Kyiv and Novgorod, resembling the former
by shape and the latter by weight. The Chernihiv and Novgorod hryvnias
got their geographic names according to where the archeologists found them,
rather than the place they were cast. Also found on the territory of Ukraine
were the Volga hryvnias made by ancient masters in the shape of a small
boat.
In 1237, the 140,000-man army of Batu Khan, grandson of
Genghis Khan, invaded Rus’. Kyiv was captured by the Mongols in the winter
of 1240. Hryvnias gradually stopped circulating. The Kyiv hryvnia had vanished
even earlier, in the early thirteenth century, while that of Novgorod existed
until the fifteenth.
Old Rus’ hryvnias got a new lease of life as archeological
finds. According to experts, Kyiv was one of the largest centers where
hryvnias were concentrated: about 1/3 of all ancient Rus’ ingots weighing
a total of about 130 kilograms were found by archeologists here. The troves
most often feature Kyiv-type hryvnias and, somewhat more seldom, those
of Novgorod and Chernihiv. It is important to remember, however, that a
very amount of hryvnias have not reached us, for they were melted by jewelers
in the late nineteenth century. Some hryvnias found their way to private
coin collections, leaving us no information about them. The greatest concentration
of hryvnias (as well as other old Rus’ finds) have been found in Kyiv’s
Upper City and Podil (lower commercial suburb).
By the end of the fourteenth century, most of what is now
known as Western Ukraine had become the domain of the Polish king, while
the rest of lands, including Kyiv, belonged to the Grand Duke of Lithuania.
Zinayida Zraziuk continues her story, noting the changes the hryvnia underwent
in that period, “Our own coins were no longer minted, but there were some
exceptions. For instance, the coins were minted under Volodymyr Olherdovych
as late as 1394, when he was toppled from the Kyiv throne. Coins were also
minted in Lviv on behalf of the Polish king.
The ruble emerged as an alternate name of the hryvnia issued
as a silver ingot. By the fifteenth century, the hryvnia ingot, a.k.a.
ruble ingot, had ceased to be legal tender, as the money mass was constantly
growing and being devalued. Yet, it is the ruble based on the hryvnia that
became the monetary unit of the Russian Empire and, later, the USSR.
The next revival of the hryvnia occurred owing to the Revolution
of 1917. The Third Universal (decree) of November 20, 1917, proclaimed
the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) and Fourth Universal on January 22,
1918, full independence. Soon after the hryvnia was made the UNR’s main
currency by the Central Rada on March 3, 1918, with the ruble (karbovanets)
remaining a transitional currency. The ruble-to-hryvnia exchange rate was
one to two. Moreover, the new paper hryvnia could not be supported by the
young republic’s gold reserves.
“But the Ukrainian hryvnia of 1918,” Ms. Zraziuk continues,
“bore the inscription ‘ensured by the whole state property of the Republic’
instead of the customary phrase ‘ensured by the country’s gold reserve.’
To strengthen the economy and the new monetary unit, the state declared
its monopoly on vodka, tobacco, and sugar. In addition, the UNR government
opened the Land Bank, where land could be acquired, and began to issue
bonds. These measures resulted in the hryvnia’s stability until mid-1918,
when public unrest shook its position. However, despite the official decree
of 1918, the hryvnia remained in circulation until 1920.”
This is history. As to the hryvnia’s second coming caused
by Ukraine regaining the status of an independent state, it occurred as
a result of the continuity of historical traditions.
№17 May 30 2000 «The
Day»
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